Overlooking the crisis in a demonstrative manner, the Government shakes faith in itself
The financial crisis, which has struck the world and affected Russia, has been covered by Russia's state-owned media and the privately-owned media favoured by the Government in an extremely biased manner. On the one hand, the crisis is in the air, but on the other hand, there seems to be no crisis at all. TV news broadcasts permanently assert that the crisis has delivered another blow to the U.S., EU, and other countries' financial systems, and what measures those countries' governments have undertaken to rectify the situation.
The state of affairs in Russia is covered by the state-owned media in a different way. News presenters and commentators try to avoid the words "crisis" and "collapse"; more often than not, they do not report dramatic developments in the stock and financial markets. They only punctiliously reiterate the Government's opinion, according to which it is the U.S. that is to blame for the crisis, and Russia could become the world's "safe haven". At the same time, they recount the anti-crisis measures undertaken by the Russian Government.
The state TV channels' method of presenting news on October 6 may be regarded as the apotheosis of this strange style of covering developments that all people consider to be critical. On that day, the Russian stock market experienced a record-breaking plunge, with stock indexes plummeting 19%. State TV channels, however, simply kept silent about it. Instead, President Dmitry Medvedev was shown discussing the West's crisis-related problems with Alfa Group head Mikhail Fridman. TV viewers were also informed that other countries' leading stock indexes fell 5-7%. Needless to say, Web business forum users ranted, commenting on such coverage of the country's key news. Officials who argued that Russia, unlike the West, was faring well, became the butt of jokes.
The goals of PR specialists on the payroll of the Government are quite clear: by trying to conceal the acuteness of the financial crunch in Russia with the state-controlled media, they hope to avert an escalation of tensions in society. Perhaps they are hoping to prevent the public from associating the crisis with Vladimir Putin's time in office as the Prime Minister and Mr Medvedev's tenure as the President, particularly since stock market collapses affect no more than 1.5% of the population, or the percentage of Russians who invest in securities.
However, the consequences of further aggravation of the crisis, which can be avoided neither in the world nor in Russia, will affect everyone. Many people will lose their jobs, and still others will have their wages and salaries cut. The prices for some commodities and services may rise, or probably fall, but not due to positive developments but rather because people will be unable to afford goods at old prices.
It is still unclear how to convince people in the future that officials and national leaders anticipated it, warned people of risks, and sought to avert negative developments. As a result, the government will be discredited again as shortsighted and deliberately oblivious to the obvious. At the same time, there is no guarantee that the tactical target - avoiding a panic among the public - will be reached. Given the state's reluctance to engage in a straightforward dialogue with its citizens, who remember the lessons of 1998, when officials denied the possibility of a default up to the last moment, people, irrespective of all government tricks, hurried to take their deposits from banks as early as September.
It is high time officials abandoned the assumption that common people are incapable of acting rationally and therefore do not need to know the whole truth. They do have the right to know the truth, however scary it is. Otherwise, the Government risks being discredited.
Western leaders have demonstrated proper behavior throughout the crisis. However deep the crisis is, they do not try to conceal it. On the contrary, some Western leaders have taken advantage of the present circumstances to prove their worth. It comes as no surprise that the low approval ratings of France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's Gordon Brown soared on the anti-recessionary wave.
Our people deserve a thorough and frank discussion of all questions, including crisis-related problems, all the more so because the nation can get over such a large-scale crisis only if society and the state unite, or at the cost of people's alienation from its government. In the latter case, society will simply lose confidence in its leaders. It is up to the country's leaders to choose the right course.